Masha Ma | Paris Fashion Week Fall 2017

From Dior to Desigual, if there’s one message we’ve heard loud and clear this Fall-Winter 2017, it’s the notion of female strength and empowerment.

(And I confess I may have been a bit too hard on Dior, as their collection did manage to bring luxe to a rage normally reserved for the disenfranchised: their collection just struck me as so much less “magical” than the season before.)

Of these voices, Masha Ma will go down as one of most forceful, with a collection that’s angry and beautiful and daring.

The current political climate has a lot of us angry. In the case of Masha Ma’s Fall 2017 collection during Paris Fashion Week, the outer trappings of the collection make skillful use of the vocabulary of rebellion in fashion — tartan, leather, and bondage gear, for example — and silhouettes that create strong shoulders, ready for battle. (Indeed, Ma refers to this collection as a “war cry.”)

The current political climate has a lot of us angry.

Deeper flecks of rage can be seen in some of the words that appear on tees, the strongest of which is “Ton Chien” (your dog), bringing an added layer of depth to the dog collars that appear on other looks. Likewise, “Social Distortion” is a rather direct reference to the California punk band.

Deeper flecks of rage can be seen in some of the words used

The most intellectual of these is “Transgressive Sexual Practice,” an apparent reference to American feminist bell hooks and the idea of “norms” prescribed by — and enforced by — a ruling elite.

It may be a difficult time to be a global citizen, but it’s a great time to be in fashion.

Fashion is more aware, more alive, more compassionate, and smarter than it’s ever been: and if we need any further proof of that, we need look no further than Masha Ma.

Fashion Week Brooklyn (FW|BK) is a bi-annual exhibition of national and international fashion designers founded by the BK|Style Foundation (BK|SF), a 501c(3) non-profit organization. Named the No. 5 International Fashion Event by Fashionado in 2015,[...]